Special interests as a coping mechanism?

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Dandansson
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20 Jun 2021, 3:14 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Lady Strange wrote:
I suppose if your special interest was maybe playing an instrument then you would have to practice a lot. Mine tend to be reading about topics I really like, and learning more about it, it's not so much practicing or being good at it just absorbing information.

One philosophy about music is that musical competence isn't important, and that it's good to sing or play for the catharsis of the thing rather than to please others. The skiffle craze of the 1950s had some of that philosophy in it, punk rock even more so. The curious thing is that the musicians who did those things very often became skilled, without particularly intending to. A band I know of was often seen as a part of various political demonstrations, and they just banged drums or anything that could be used as a drum, and anybody could join in, with no worries about doing anything but making as much noise as they liked. They were also involved in music therapy sessions for kids with Downs' Syndrome, where similarly there was no particular intention of training them.

It's probably hypocritical of me to approve of all this so strongly, because I often drive myself very hard to achieve an ambitious result, but I never try to be a virtuoso and don't even like hearing a lot of virtuoso music, and I'm happy to "cheat" fairly blatantly to make what I do sound beautiful or exciting. When a musician gets uncomfortable through striving too hard, the music gets worse. Whatever the special interest, I think it's best to only work hard on it when it feels right to, and to remember that it's about fun, fascination and fulfilment.


We are talking about ASD so the details are often important for us. I mean, sure there are people who sing and don't care if they hit the notes correctlt but even most "NTs" see the details as important.
I really disslike the fact that people see them,ie people with downs syndrome, as people who cannot learn to dance or sing.
Are there really any evidence for that belief?



ToughDiamond
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20 Jun 2021, 9:06 am

Dandansson wrote:
We are talking about ASD so the details are often important for us. I mean, sure there are people who sing and don't care if they hit the notes correctlt but even most "NTs" see the details as important.
I really disslike the fact that people see them,ie people with downs syndrome, as people who cannot learn to dance or sing.
Are there really any evidence for that belief?

I wouldn't know. I suspect that there'd be a spectrum of different degrees of musical skill potential. The band concerned was simply trying to give them a fun experience, whether or not they were capable of acquiring what we'd call music skills. And I guess they didn't make their contribution to the political demos a "musicians only" thing because similarly they wanted to be inclusive rather than elitist.

I agree that our frequent interest in detail and perfectionism might get in the way of injecting fun and catharsis into our special interests. But I think it's often possible to consciously go against that. My own brain keeps insisting I should be a hard-working scientist, but I like to fly in its face at times and dabble with free-form art. I take a pride in my technical achievements as a musician but in a sense I'm also rather ashamed of myself when I see that I've made it too analytical, too much like hard work. I'm in a sense more satisfied when I see that when I played some music, I was actually playing as opposed to working.



Dandansson
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21 Jun 2021, 3:48 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Dandansson wrote:
We are talking about ASD so the details are often important for us. I mean, sure there are people who sing and don't care if they hit the notes correctlt but even most "NTs" see the details as important.
I really disslike the fact that people see them,ie people with downs syndrome, as people who cannot learn to dance or sing.
Are there really any evidence for that belief?

I wouldn't know. I suspect that there'd be a spectrum of different degrees of musical skill potential. The band concerned was simply trying to give them a fun experience, whether or not they were capable of acquiring what we'd call music skills. And I guess they didn't make their contribution to the political demos a "musicians only" thing because similarly they wanted to be inclusive rather than elitist.

I agree that our frequent interest in detail and perfectionism might get in the way of injecting fun and catharsis into our special interests. But I think it's often possible to consciously go against that. My own brain keeps insisting I should be a hard-working scientist, but I like to fly in its face at times and dabble with free-form art. I take a pride in my technical achievements as a musician but in a sense I'm also rather ashamed of myself when I see that I've made it too analytical, too much like hard work. I'm in a sense more satisfied when I see that when I played some music, I was actually playing as opposed to working.

Too analytical?

The fun experience I think comes when you actually know how to do something, right?
Or is that even important? Think about all those sing-a-longs you see on the telly. People seem to enjoy themselves even if the cannot sing the song at all (at least not in that situation). There is one show in which they take random people in the audience and put the mic in front of them for some seconds. Some sound terrible but seem to enjoy themselves.
I only enjoy myself if I can sing a tune and sound good (perhaps not perfect but still ok).
What are your experiences?



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21 Jun 2021, 7:13 pm

Dandansson wrote:
Too analytical?

The fun experience I think comes when you actually know how to do something, right?
Or is that even important? Think about all those sing-a-longs you see on the telly. People seem to enjoy themselves even if the cannot sing the song at all (at least not in that situation). There is one show in which they take random people in the audience and put the mic in front of them for some seconds. Some sound terrible but seem to enjoy themselves.
I only enjoy myself if I can sing a tune and sound good (perhaps not perfect but still ok).
What are your experiences?

Similar to yours. I seem unable to just make a noise for the hell of it, I can't seem to stop finding fault with what I do. I've been striving to make better music for over 50 years and it does seem that it's got better and better, but my standards just recalibrate upwards so even now I hardly feel any more satisfied with my stuff than I ever did. It's nice when I suddenly get better at some aspect of music, and for a short time I'm proud of it, but then I get used to it and I'm just as critical of my work as ever.

But because I became aware that immediacy in art was important to me, there's always a part of me that returns to the idea that I'm trying too hard and wasting time being over-analytical and perfectionist. But paradoxically, like happiness, it seems it can't be got by actively thinking about it and seeking it, it's more an unexpected by-product if it happens at all. The only help for it that I can see is to try to use moderation - to allow the analytical thing to happen but to also keep it from taking over and stifling creativity.

One thing I noticed when I became accomplished (and occasionally lucky) enough to get positive feedback from the audience (it helps if they're blind drunk), that critical thing in me goes away and my music seems to sound a lot better to my own ears. Almost as if the hive mind and the emotion of others is influencing my judgement their way, and when it happens I feel great. It's strange because consciously at most other times I seem completely impervious to the hive mind, and am proud to be so hard to brainwash.



Dandansson
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22 Jun 2021, 4:01 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Dandansson wrote:
Too analytical?

The fun experience I think comes when you actually know how to do something, right?
Or is that even important? Think about all those sing-a-longs you see on the telly. People seem to enjoy themselves even if the cannot sing the song at all (at least not in that situation). There is one show in which they take random people in the audience and put the mic in front of them for some seconds. Some sound terrible but seem to enjoy themselves.
I only enjoy myself if I can sing a tune and sound good (perhaps not perfect but still ok).
What are your experiences?

Similar to yours. I seem unable to just make a noise for the hell of it, I can't seem to stop finding fault with what I do. I've been striving to make better music for over 50 years and it does seem that it's got better and better, but my standards just recalibrate upwards so even now I hardly feel any more satisfied with my stuff than I ever did. It's nice when I suddenly get better at some aspect of music, and for a short time I'm proud of it, but then I get used to it and I'm just as critical of my work as ever.

But because I became aware that immediacy in art was important to me, there's always a part of me that returns to the idea that I'm trying too hard and wasting time being over-analytical and perfectionist. But paradoxically, like happiness, it seems it can't be got by actively thinking about it and seeking it, it's more an unexpected by-product if it happens at all. The only help for it that I can see is to try to use moderation - to allow the analytical thing to happen but to also keep it from taking over and stifling creativity.

One thing I noticed when I became accomplished (and occasionally lucky) enough to get positive feedback from the audience (it helps if they're blind drunk), that critical thing in me goes away and my music seems to sound a lot better to my own ears. Almost as if the hive mind and the emotion of others is influencing my judgement their way, and when it happens I feel great. It's strange because consciously at most other times I seem completely impervious to the hive mind, and am proud to be so hard to brainwash.

What kind of music do you perform?
I've been told that when people have brains who focus on details eg non-functional details or see the whole picture with the details, they can become perfectionistic.
Or they missed the important details in the past and was told so. Now they don't trust themselves and look perfectionistic. Their special interest is now not always that enjoyable for them. It can become a source of frustration. I've never understood the people who could engage in a special interest without being perfectionistic. I wonder how much a special interest can help you have a meltdown. It doesn't always reduce them (even if Attwood seems to think so).

What do you think?



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22 Jun 2021, 1:07 pm

Dandansson wrote:
What kind of music do you perform?
I've been told that when people have brains who focus on details eg non-functional details or see the whole picture with the details, they can become perfectionistic.
Or they missed the important details in the past and was told so. Now they don't trust themselves and look perfectionistic. Their special interest is now not always that enjoyable for them. It can become a source of frustration. I've never understood the people who could engage in a special interest without being perfectionistic. I wonder how much a special interest can help you have a meltdown. It doesn't always reduce them (even if Attwood seems to think so).
What do you think?

I suppose you have to see the details to be able to see faults in them, but I suspect there's more to perfectionism than that. Just because a person notices detail doesn't necessarily mean that all they see is the faults. I think they'd need a particular eye for flaws. Certainly I'm like that, but my eye for the negative could be down to my upbringing and my experiences of life. And it's not all that I am.

There was a clarinet player - Artie Shaw - who gave it up because he said the perfectionism would have killed him if he hadn't. I don't doubt that perfectionism can be a source of misery and stress. Obviously, if all you see is faults, that's got to be depressing. But I get quite a lot of good feelings about things too. When I see a fault and realise that I think I can set it right, that can be quite exciting.

The music I perform - many kinds. Folk, country, rock and roll, folk rock, punk rock, singer-songwriter, blues, Beatles.